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Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in
which intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates
that what transcends the primarily intellective has no
intellection; for, to have intellection, it must become an
Intellectual-Principle, and, if it is to become that, it must
possess an intellectual object and, as primarily intellective, it
must possess that intellectual object as something within itself.
But it is not inevitable that every intellectual object should
both possess the intellective principle in itself and exercise
intellection: at that, it would be not merely object but subject
as well and, besides, being thus dual, could not be primal:
further, the intellectual principle that is to possess the
intellectual object could not cohere unless there existed an
essence purely intellectual, something which, while standing as
intellectual object to the intellectual principle, is in its own
essence neither an agent nor an object of intellection. The
intellectual object points to something beyond itself [to a
percipient]; and the intellectual agent has its intellection in
vain unless by seizing and holding an object- since, failing
that, it can have no intellection but is consummated only when it
possesses itself of its natural term.
There must have been something standing consummate independently
of any intellectual act, something perfect in its own essence:
thus that in which this completion is inherent must exist before
intellection; in other words it has no need of intellection,
having been always self-sufficing: this, then, will have no
intellectual act.
Thus we arrive at: a principle having no intellection, a
principle having intellection primarily, a principle having it
secondarily.
It may be added that, supposing The First to be intellective, it
thereby possesses something [some object, some attribute]: at
once it ceases to be a first; it is a secondary, and not even a
unity; it is a many; it is all of which it takes intellectual
possession; even though its intellection fell solely upon its own
content, it must still be a manifold.
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